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You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Good Evening.
One day in May nineteen ninety seven, a young couple on their way to work off a dirt road in the mountains of Colorado, spotted a man dragging a woman's body up a trail. The man fled, leaving behind a bloodied, dying woman. The beautiful wooded area seemed such an incongruous place for a violent crime that the couple had a
hard time believing what they were seeing. Indeed, the investigation into the death of young street walker Anita Paley would lead from that idyllic spot to the seemy underbelly of Denver and a world of prostitution, drug dealers, and violent criminals, and it would expose the lives of two of that world's inhabitants, the suspect, Robert Riggan and Anita's friend Joanne Cordova, a former cop turned crack addict and hooker. In the past, Cordova had submitted to violent sex with Riggan in exchange
for drugs. It was just part of her life on the mean streets. But when her friend Anita was murdered, Joanne had to make a choice. She could go to her former colleagues on the police department and tell them what she suspected and put her life in danger as a snitch, or she could look the other way and let us suspected killer walk free and continue his attacks on women. Rough Trade is more than the recounting of
a murder investigation and prosecution. It's also the story of two people from the seething criminal underworld of Denver, Colorado, and how their pass crossed on the streets and in the court room. There's Riggan, who was raised in his own private hell that included rape, incest, and extreme abuse
to become a violent sexual predator. And there's Cordoba, who had to summon the courage and suffer the humiliation in order to pull herself out of the abyss into which she had fallen to testify against the man she believed killed her friend, and in doing so she found her own personal redemption. The book that we're featuring this evening is Rough Trade, a shocking true story of Prostitution, Murder, and Redemption with my special guests, journalist and author and
publisher Steve Jackson. Welcome back to the program, and thank you for a GREENI this interview.
Steve Jackson.
Well, thanks Dan, it's always a pleasure to be here.
Thank you very much. I hope you didn't have too much trouble. When I last spoke to you. You were involved in a tornado. So it's moving a little bump.
In the road. I would say.
Yeah, I was in my apartment out here where I live and got a tornado warning telling me to take cover. Next thing I knew, boom, the apartment's gone. The building I was in is well, it was now condemned. There's it's on shaky ground. But so anyway, Yeah, it's been the last couple of weeks moving out of one apartment and into a new new house and all that sort of thing. So kind of the unexpected. It's not every day you think you're going to get wiped out by a tornado and have to move.
No, absolutely not. Let's get to this book. It was.
Published in nineteen ninety nine if I'm not correct, And tell us how you came to this story, and I don't know what this number was, but I know this wasn't.
Your first book.
But tell us about which one this was in terms of how many true crimes you've written, books you've written, and tell us how you came to this project, to this story.
Well, I believe the book was actually published maybe in two thousand, but yeah, very close into that range there, And I believe that it's my second. Why I say I believe because you know, many of us were always working on two or three books that had a time and not stone unturned would come out very quickly on the heels of this one as well. But I believe this is number two after a monster and I came upon it. It was the crime occurred in the county in Colorado,
which I was living at the time. And you know, unfortunately, there are a lot of murders in the in the United States of one sort or another, and not all of them rise to the necessities to create a book that might be of interest to people or say something some message, I would hope. But as I received a call one day from someone saying, you know, you might
really be interested in this case. I've been working in Denver besides as an author, as a journalist for many years in the courts, and they said that one of the star witnesses in the case was a former police officer who was now a prostitute, and she would be the prosecution's star witness if she managed to survive long enough to be the wit. Well, no, well that's kind of you. Tell us sort of how we got started.
Now, you talked about that county that you were from, and this story involves a couple counties obviously, well much more than that, but especially Jefferson County, and you talked about also Guilpen County.
If that's the way we pronounced it. And so tell us.
As you open up in the story, you talk about with a couple of people that were living in Golden Colorado, Jason Sizaby and Amy Johnson. They're both involved in the casino industry in that area and they're on their way on a road. So take us back to, as you do in the book, to this scene where these two people they're about to be married or their fiance and ready to be married. So who are these people and how do they happen upon this basically what ends up being the crime scene.
Well, Jefferson County and Guilpen County are Jason one another Guiltin's a little farther north and west of Jefferson, and uh they have a district attorney for Jefferson County actually at the time also handled Guilden County UH prosecutions, and that's so they had a merged district and that's how this this crime that happens in Guilpen actually ends up in the Jefferson County courthouse. But that's sort of a
legal whatever uh issues and stuff that are there. But anyway, the the the young couple, UH, they're they're living in the mountains in Colorado. The gaming industry uh in that area is up in Blackhawk and Central City, two old mining towns that have sort of undergone some uh changes because of gaming was allowed, and they happened pretty much ghost towns until that happened, and and so they were
experiencing a revival of sorts. And these two happened to have jobs with the with the casinos and they were living in a little house up in the mountains and just happened to be on their way to work one morning driving past down a dirt road, as many of them are in that area toward the city at black Hawk and and kind of came around the bend and there's an old miners cabin there at that bend in
the road. And as they went past, Jason, I guess he didn't see anything right away he saw the van actually a blue vand parked by the side of the road and and parked on the wrong side of the road, as we would say, you know, the tone of pointing the wrong direction. But his fiance Amy, she was looking out the side and then suddenly yelled that, you know, wait a second, I just think I saw somebody hauling a body of a trail. The body was on a sleeping bag, and this whoever it was, was pulling the
bag behind him up a rather rough trail. So it wasn't like somebody's doing it for fun. And Jason at first didn't believe her, thought, you know, because they went pretty fast quiet, and thought, you know, she was just misinterpreting. But she was so insistent that they eventually got to the end of the road where t bones there, and and he flipped around and was going to go up and mostly to at the dissatisfy her, you know, tell her, you know, you you misinterpreted, you didn't see what you saw.
But as they were driving back up the road in that direction, the blue van he'd seen before came roaring down the road and passed them, And so they kind of continued on up to the cabin, and as you noted it, it quickly became the crime scene when they came upon a young woman who was lying on a sleeping bag on this trail, her head grossly swollen from a skull fracture and bleeding both from her vaginal area as well as from her head.
Now there was no self service, So what did they do. Well, I'll just say that they ran next door. Jason ran next door for help. So tell us they take her to the hospital. What are the extent of the injuries? Of course, the police are called.
What are the.
Extent of the injuries that they can determine immediately at that crime scene?
Right, they life flight are out of there. It's it's pretty far up in the hills and would have taken an ambulance quite some time to get there. So they get her out of there. You know, it's obviously she's got something wrong with her her head, just because it's swollen to the size of essencially of volleyball, basketball or whatever, just grotesquely swollen. And they can tell she's bleeding quite profusely from her vaginal area just because of the stains
on the sleeping bag. So they know she's hurt pretty bad. She does some moaning, but basically there's no point of consciousness, and she doesn't say anything in particular. She's just very badly hurt. So they take her to the hospital er room.
Now, Jason was pretty observant, and obviously Amy was in the very first place. But Jason didn't get the entire license plate. But what part of that license plate and what kind of description did they give police about this person that they saw, What did he see and what could he impart to the officer? And how much of that license fleet did he get?
Well, they got the blue van, and I believe as the GMC. It's a little bit back there for me to remember. Could have been afford to conno line for all I know, but a larger blue van. And and he did get the first three letters of life plate Colorado generally about six to seven, just depending characters and stuff. But he got the first three on the on the van as it went past them. And you know, it
was moving fast. It was going much faster than a person normally would on a dirt road, and they were going the other direction, so that there was only a brief moment to catch it. He didn't get much of a look at the guy inside of the van, other than noting it was a male, and of course Amy had seen what she believed was a male pulling the the sleeping bag in the bar. Get the trail.
So now there's an alert out and there's a pretty observant state trooper, this Frank Cisco, and you talk about he crossed paths with the one. A van turns around, he's in pursuit and there's some dangerous driving going on by this this driver, Cisco has to abandon chase. And meanwhile they're trying to save this woman's life at the hospital. Is there any identification to have any idea of who she is, that she have a purse or anything they have any idea.
They couldn't find anything to identify who she was. She was just the Jane Doe. They did find a driver's license, but it belonged obviously to an older woman, a woman in her forties, and the girl of the victim was obviously not that old and uh and they had found some uh well, actually that's that's that's a little down the thing. She she when they get her to the hospital,
they don't have anything on her. They don't actually find any of this other identification until later on when they do find the van.
No, it's as we talked about in the opening, she doesn't She doesn't last very long. Her prospect of her living wasn't very good. And she didn't survive, did.
She, No, she didn't. It was they had a doctor's working on one on her head, trying to relieve the pressure of the skull fracture, and she was also, as a noted, and suffered a severe cut to the interior of her vaginal area, and that was had she gled profusely from that. But it was the mostly the head injury that prevented any sort of you know, even their heroic measures. And they really did. I mean, they had two of the best er doctors in Colorado working on her.
Dr nurses and everybody did their best to save this girl, and it just wasn't meant to be.
Now, as you go back and forth in the book, we have this high speed chase that this police are alerted to and he's driving dangerously and he has to abandon this. The police officer that was alerted was has to abandon that chase.
So what happens.
They find this minivan? And if and when they do, what do they.
Find in there?
What kind of clues do they are able to assess from that evidence they found in the van?
Tell us what they find?
Well, they do when once they find the van, it's abandoned the city of Boulder. Once they do find the van, they find an identification card for a woman named Joanne Colrdoba, who is obviously older than the victim and uh so they're not exactly sure where she might be. And of course the fears are that something had happened to her as well. And they find some other identification that there lets them think that they are looking for a man
named Robert, Robert Riggan or Robert Johnson. Goes by several aliases, so they do find some some clues there. They also find some blood in the van and uh and and some articles of clothing and some other things like that.
Now the vent itself, at first we imagine or at least I conjured up. Okay, this is the torture vent like we have in so many stories, but that's not the case in this particular case. But so what, how's that van set up? What to tell us what is in the back? And again do they get any clues as to the kind of character of the what they may believe is a killer at that time? From that looking at that van itself, well.
The van itself, other than the blood between the two seats at the back of it, is pretty much set up for somebody to live in the van, and it's very neatly kept. He's got everything in its place and contained plastic containers with bungee cords to hold everything in place as it drives, and very almost too neat in some ways. That is, you know, there's nothing out of place in the van, and the only thing that's different or at a place, I guess, is the blood between the seats.
As you do in this book, you investigate our pardon me, you introduce characters that are important obviously to the story, and one of those is investigator with the DA's office, which is Jim Burkholter. And this is from Jefferson Counter, which is a much bigger county and able to assist and much bigger staff obviously as well and more experience.
So you also include a little bit of the experience that these people have, this high profile experience, will say in the courts, just to demonstrate where this person is coming from before they experience this. As we're knowing Robert Riggins Junior. So you do a particular case where you talk about the case that he was involved in with the disabled man who dismembered his competition. Tell us a little bit about Jim Burke Calter and this one particular story that you include in your book.
Well, Jim Burculter was a long time Denver police detective before retiring from the Denver Police departments and beginning to work as an investigator for the Jefferson County District Attorney's office. Not an uncommon thing, particularly in Colorado, that the district attorney's offices hire former police department police officers or detectives
to work as their investigators. These are investigators who run down things for the district attorneys kind of carry on, you know, the police share whether Sheriff's office with police departments do the initial investigation in most of it, but these investigators kind of they start working the case where the prosecutors saying, we need to find this, we need to find that. So that's where where Jim comes into
play there. But he had a long and varied history as a detective, so it was considered one of Denver's better police detectives and had solved some some pretty outstanding crimes. But one of them was a guy in a wheelchair who was sort of a love triangle of sorts. And and yes, he he ended up murdering his his competition and dismembering him and all these sorts of things, which I guess from a wheelchair makes it doublely, uh, I
guess impressive from a murderer's point of view. And I don't know how the rest of us you look like that, But he he went through all the all the things that many killers do as far as trying to dismember his victim and get rid of him in various ways that way. But yeah, so that's that's one of one of a number of great detective stories that Jim has.
Yeah. The part of this story that's even more impressive, I guess is that he was taunted as this disabled person by the neighborhood kids, young kids, and so to add to the horror of the crime. He sent some of the severed body parts to the neighborhood kids to further taunt them for their taunting. So and so that's where interesting you have Jim Burkhalter comes not so innocent to this case. So what do the police think that they have and when they discover and the name comes
up Juanne Cordova. Obviously, what happens as a result of the police looking into who Juanne Kordova is what happens as a result, Well.
The concern is part of it. I mean, obviously, you have a young woman, she suffered a skull fracture, and as this guy is trying to holler up a trail as opposed to taking her some where to you know, seek help or something like that. It's you start with that it's a crime and a homicide. But the victim in this case had been cut with a very sharp instrument, very sharp knife or razor blade, very deeply in her vagina.
And of course that seems to you know, that's one of those things that sets off the alarm bell that you're you're not just dealing with somebody who gets in an argument and it whacks somebody on the head with a stick, and and this person has hurt or shoves her out of a car or or hits her with a car or anything like that. This is somebody who carries it a step further to where he's actually maiming
somebody who has already been incapacitated. In that, of course, any police detective sets the the red flags up that you know, you're deal with somebody who could very well be a serial sexual killer or at least has those those sort of traits that this is. This is more than just killing. This is somebody who has some anger and some other possibly fantasies and that sort of thing.
So you start worrying about, you know what else has this guy then, So when they find the identification cards of Joanne Cordova, they're alarmed about, well, who is this woman? He has her card. There's some articles of clothing in this van that don't seem to belong to the victim, So has he already struck before this? And they're looking at somebody who has killed more than one person.
Now there's another alert police officer named Bruce Norton, and in an abandoned van he finds some documents that indicate to indicate clearly that the person that they're looking for is using various aliases. And there's an address book and
it doesn't have any area codes listed. But again they have to try these phone numbers, and so he tries a local area code, doesn't work, and he tries IOWA And tell us who he calls and who he thinks that it says Dad in the phone book, So this is about about the only humorous thing in this book, really, But tell us what that call is like and who he gets on the line, and what does his father say?
Well, yeah, And one of the things I really loved about this book is that there's a number of detectives all kind of working simultaneously, and yet you kind of see them. It's almost like a solar system. You know, they're all doing their own thing, but they're evolving around
this one on crime. And there's some great detective work and many facets, and this is one of them where the guy takes a flyer with the address book and and and starts calling and eventually finds that he gets the one that says dad and calls this guy and it turns out to be a man named Robert Riggins and basically they describe, describe this and and the dad says, well,
it sounds like my son. You know, he's been in and out of trouble with the law and and you know, so now they have a name and a person and a where he's from to go on. Uh and uh, so the search becomes for Robert Riggin and junior and uh and so it's just another one of those little pieces of the puzzles starting to click in this place as the detectives work this case.
Right.
And what happens to Norton takes this a little bit further as well. They look into what they now have as a Name's Riggins has got has done time on firearm violations and he's been twice arrested for sexual assault, but I guess not convicted. And he found they just should have been a photo with the US Marshals and sure enough there is, so.
Right away they're on the job here.
They've got his alias, which is Robert Davis, and right away they've got this out for the evening news. They don't know who Jane Doe is, but there's an unusual tattoo on her foot and they're going to go from there, and as you do in the book, we go back.
To Joanne Cordova.
So at this time, Jane Doe is dead and they have a name. So what's happening with Joanne Cordova at this time? What is she doing and how does she happen upon hearing about this connection with the person that she knows her friend Anita.
Well, as you said, they've they've kind of got this down to a to to a suspect. They have a photo of the suspect and under under an alias, but they put it on the evening news, and it just so happens that Joanne Cordova is watching the evening news and it talks about a young woman has been found dead and there's a suspect in her murder, and they flashes his photo up. And Joanne at this time is
uh is working as a prostitute. And then Vernon Colfax Avenue, which is one of the ceder areas of town, particularly particularly at that time, kind of known for prostitution and dealing and gangs and violence and and all of this sort of thing. And Joanne has met this guy. She says, I recognize him as that's Robert Davis or Robert Johnson, you know, he he's passing different aliases around it. And
she had actually gone with him at some point. Basically he would buy drugs, crack coach caine for these women and and in exchange for for sex, and she had gone with him at one point and even traveled with him once once up into the mountains, where in Joanne, you know, it was sort of a uh, you know,
he wasn't a bad guy to her. He kind of bought her some clothes, he you know, bought her some crack cocaine, which to a crack addict is uh is pretty much doing everything they want you to do, and then took her up to the mountains for what seemed to be a was going to be a pleasant little trip.
So she recognizes him right away and then realizes that the Jane Doe that they're talking about must be her friend Anita, because the last time she had seen Anita, Anita was about to go meet this guy that that Joanne knew as Robert Johnson and Robert Davis, and she was Anita was going to going to go out with the guy. The guy was going to buy her some crack and give her some money and Anita was Paley. I guess I should say back up a little bit, that her friend Anita Paley was going to go meet
this guy. So that's when she realizes when she sees the television these guys, that the dead girl must be her friend Anita Paley, and and that the perpetrator is this guy Robert Riggins.
Now, as you do in this book as well, Again I hate these words humanize. That's crazy because they're just humans. But to at least demystify how someone could go from a police officer, and I think this is the big Again obviously it's the redemption, but also it's the super big contrast and the thing that we really learned from
this book and how is it really possible? And so as you put in the book, and you document the incredible reason for her to become a cop and then end up on the streets of submitting to violent sex and for piece of crack. So tell us what happens with Juanne Marie Cordova. She was born in nineteen fifty eight. Tell us what happens to her that shapes the way she becomes later.
Well, Joanne uh when she first starts, first starts it's it's you know, if you watch the movies, it's somebody UH is one thing. They're a police officer and then they try to crack the next day they're a prostitutent. And that's That's not what happened with Joanne. She it was was a long downward spiral and what And originally Joanne came from a good home. She was sexually molested early on in life by a friend of the family, but she came from a good home, good background, good values,
and was a you know, good student. And she married young, had had a child young with her her husband, and they married too young. They were right out of high school, and eventually that would split. But Joanne met a UH at Denver police off or police detective. And this guy was kind of older and had a lot of money for some reason. You know, he's just a police detective and and kind of winder and dinder, and you know,
he was married. But you know, he gave her the lines about you know, he's the wife that doesn't understand him, and all these sorts of things, and eventually she starts having an affair with him, and eventually they end up as a couple. But this this plea other police detective was, you know, he ran a sort of a moonlighting security uh company, and and did a number of things that
were pretty nefarious and not above board. And and he would convince Joanne that, you know, it's it's okay, everybody does it that sort of thing, and and you know, we can all look at what other people do and and say, well, I would never do that, and I would never do that. But you know, until you been in that situation, I'm not sure how many people know what they would do. But Joanne, you know, eventually convinces her.
She works for him for a while in this security company, but eventually convinces her that she'd be a good police officer. And so Joanne actually appy too and went to the police academy and got through the police academy and all these sorts of things. Now she wanted to go on vacation with her lover police detective and and so she actually cheated a little bit and had her sister fill out one of the forums on one of the tests,
and so you know, that wasn't obviously wasn't right. And eventually all that sort of stuff would come back to haunt Joanne when she broke up with her her lover and one railway or another, and I think we all probably know what happened, and she ended up being the police find out that, you know, her sister took this
one test. Even though Joanne up to that point had been an exemplary police officer, had been on patrol and worked for a while and had commendations and all these sorts of things, but you know, a past mistake came back to haunt her, and she eventually ended up having to resign from the force. And I think it's one of those things in life where you know, you find something you like to do and would be good at, and but you have made a mistake, and now you've
got to pay for it, and suddenly what do you have. Well, So she worked for a while after she left the police department, various jobs, had various successes, kind of fell in with some people who did a lot of partying, and at that time, drugs and cocaine and particularly crack cocaine where sort of new on the scene, and she got into smoking crack cocaine. And yeah, I mean this
is we're talking a period of years. I'm sort of doing a condensed version here, but a period of years she starts using crack cocaine until the crack cocaine, the addiction to it starts to overcome her reasons and reasoning and her morals and her ethics, and and you know, long story short is in the end she to get crack more crack. She can't hold a job because she's
a drug addict. At this point, she starts working working as a prostitute, which is I think, I forget what percentages are, but the number of women who work as prostitutes who are also addicted to drugs of one sort or not are is extremely high. And so that when we catch up to the story that's Joanne, she it's many years down the line from when she is a police officer and she's obviously spiral downhill to where she's a prostitute on a streets of Denver and telling herself for crack cocaine.
She falls even further because she has children and she has ends up in prison. She might think she's going to get probation. She got four years, survived that and then went clean, and you said, as you document, she was cleaned for ten months and then she had a relapse and then a year after that relapse, she talked about she was paroled in nineteen ninety five. A year later, in May nineteen ninety seven, she was approached by a man in a blue mini van and his name was Bob Davis.
So we get back to you get back to this where there's.
Bob Davis is And when Joanne Courtover encounters Bob Davis, what's the situation? He has a woman with him, what does he say? What is the situation that you describe in the book where they meet mother.
The Bob Davis is driving, he does have another woman in the van, and she's another hooker in that part of Denver, and they see Joanne on the streets. And I mean, it's it's pretty understood that if you that the hookers in that part of Denver are probably if they aren't doing crack, they know where to find it. So basically he says, hey, do you know where we
could find any crack? And Joanne, of course is working, working the odds and figuring, well, if I tell him I know where to find some crack, I'll probably get some crack out of this myself. And so and that's what happens is that they go to one of her dealers and find some crack and they all get high, and that's the last she's that's still last. That day she sees of Robert Davis and he tells her that the woman with him is his wife. And she knows better.
She you know, figures this is just another hooker. But you know, they're all all these guys at the hookers. Some of them want to pretend they're married to the hooker, some of them want to you know, they all have their their fetishes and that sort of thing. So she doesn't really care what he considers this girl. If he wants to state it's my wife, that's his business. And all she really cares about is getting the drug.
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Now she doesn't know who this Robert Davis Bob Davis is. Meanwhile, it's Robert Riggins Junior. And you talk about in the book about this guy's very, very twisted upbringing. So let's as you do. Let's divert a little bit to go where his mother, Vernice and her kidney stones and the abuse that he tell us a little bit again you'll have to condense it, but a little bit of the strange and twisted upbringing of Robert Riggins Jr.
Well, this is this is one of those things where I think I noticed in this book and some other books, is that you know, sometimes we create our own monsters. You know, there's it doesn't excuse excuse the the crimes somebody like Robert Riggan or anybody else one of these type of guys does, but it certainly gives us a
reason why they turn out. But Robert Reagan had probably as bad as childhood as I can imagine his Uh, I mean, there's so much incest in his family and his brothers or his uncles or you know, are Uh it's who's who's fathered what child through his mother or his sisters or or anything else, and is just sort of a grab bag of of who was who and and how are they related, you know, and plus the sexual perversions, uh, you know, the the his father drilling holes in the walls so we can watch his own
daughter's bathe and uh, it's it's just a horror story that you would have a hard time believing in some ways if you didn't hear it or or see the facts of it. But basically that's that's the sort of landscape he grew up in, which is a landscape of sexual perversion and incests and sexual abuse, and so that's that's where Robert Riggan comes from, and you sort of start to understand that some child raised that way can't possibly have a normal outlook on how people are supposed to be a.
As you point out in one example is that there was a pastor Keys came over to discuss with the family just there was a rumor that Robert was abusing his step like, Robert was abusing his step granddaughter Teresa, and the mother, Vernie, said, listen, the problem is not is not my husband, it's Teresa. So it just showed you the mentality without any further explanation of where that As you describe a house full of incest and brothers and sisters born from relationships she had with her brother.
It is a very bizarre upbringing. But what's also very interesting for the time in the seventies is that he was there was some medical potential intervention here in the second grade. He was burnt with this gasoline was apparently an accident from his father, who'd just added to again his trauma and the torment for the scar the terrible scars that he had at school. But he also was diagnosed as depressed, and he also had this a thing that was involved with his bowel movements. So maybe you
can explain also this the potential for psychiatric intervention. But at least what they did see at that time and what they did report.
Pretty early on, they actually start noting that he's got probably the bowel movement is when he get frightened or upset or whatever, he loses controls of his bowels. And you know, as a child, you can imagine what that would be like in school, especially after he gets burned and starts in these scarred looking and and all these sorts of things, and comes from the household he does, so, uh, you know, suddenly he's also dealing with that sort of thing.
And then you know it's it's uh, you you you have this child who is burned, who is going through this sexual especially perverted household, who doesn't understand any of the mores of normal society or how you're supposed to relate. And they they did have some psychiatric intervention or or could have had and there were, but unfortunately both the parents, uh you know who wouldn't take him to his counseling. And then you you see sort of a favure of
of child protective services. I mean, if you know, I I know, we sometimes criticized child protects of services as overstepping their bounds and and all these sorts of things. And but in this case, there was a child left in a household that was so obviously just you know, beyond the pale of of of these sorts of things that you you keep for. As I was watching his trial,
I kept her and hearing this part of it. During the the sentencing phase, I kept wondering, is like, how did somebody not just take this kid out of the situation? Or in all the kids, you know, they were just left there? And uh and once again, and sometimes we create our own monsters. Is there is there any any doubt that this boy would have turned out to ye?
I mean, I think the greater surprise would have been if a Robert Rigan had turned into a normal, productive human being, then that he turned into a killer.
Right, Well, let's get back to the other again.
What would seem like a trajectory that would be poised for success. This Duanne Cordova had everything going for her. She did have certainly some incredible setbacks with this lieutenant. This that was incredible double cross where he informed on her as revenge for breaking up with him. Essentially meanwhile, he was not only having an affair with his wife,
but a couple other women as well. So she had a lot of incredible bad luck and like you say, a ten year descent into where she's at that at this time that she's on the street submitting to violent sex with this Riggins guy.
Ah.
But there's also you add another story as well to this, is that there's another woman named Johnson that has an experience with Riggins as well. Just to talk about the experience. So tell us about this woman named Johnson and what her experience is with Riggins and what he tells her.
Well, it's it's hers is sort of a h You see this pattern over and over with with Riggan is that he he sort of wants to live this fantasy of you know, he both both both with he actually has a couple of wives and and but also women he meets later on that he lives this sort of fantasy of you know, the normal guy and very gracious and good manners and all these sorts of things and everything a girl could want. But he snaps, he gets violente.
He likes rough sex. He treats women as it's been basically the only way he really understands how to treat him, which is to you know, basically act out rape fantasy and very controlling.
So to add to Joanne Cordova, she understands what she's in store for in terms of with Riggins, and yet still submits to that. But what is her experience that she despite all that you know, lure and also that she needs this drug. There is a time when she sort of has some instincts and says, listen, I'll be back in a couple hours. And that's how we get to the point where she has her clothes and events.
So explain how that happens, because this is really an important part of this and this story is those clothes and he does reactions to those clothes. Joannes the police. So tell us a little bit how that happens.
Well, for when when Joanne meets Robert Riggan and uh, you know, at first he's he's He doesn't even mana sex right away. He buys drugs, they go for drives. He takes her shopping, of course, he shoppeds most everything. He's kind of a better at criminal in many many other ways, but he uh, you know, she kind of lets herself the word into this idea of you know, she's being treated nice by a guy. Again, he's not treating her like a prostitute. He's not doing this sort
of thing and and that sort of thing. And and then he wants to go h for a a ride up to the mountains to his favorite place. And they go up to the mountains and they find this miners cabin and take a little hike up there. She kinna takes a nap and stuff, and and then all of a sudden he changes. He wants his sex and isn't one just sex. He wants rough, rough rape type sex. He wants to inflict pain. He it's not a pleasant experience and it frightens her. But Joanna has also been
at this for a while. You know, she's run into other guys who uh, you know, get rough for violence. You know, it's not pretty woman out there. When when you're talking about women on the streets and and meeting meeting guys. It's you, you know, you get with you what what comes your way sometimes and sometimes you can't always see it. So she basically has this guy. She's now realizes that Robert Davis is a dangerous guy that his you know he's and she manages to talk him down.
You know, she submits to what he wants because she knows to not submit to what he wants could be very dangerous. So she talks him down and manages to escape and and you know, has to leave behind the clothing that he bought her at at various things, which is a big deal to her. She didn't have any money, she didn't have money to go buy nice things, and he'd bought her some nice clothes and these sorts of things.
So she has to basically leave it in the van, leave all this stuff in the van and tell him, oh, I'll see it be later. But basically she was just getting away from it. And of course we'll lead to the point where then it's Anita Paley, who has does not have this kind of experience who you know, he he he wants somebody else. I Needa volunteers to be
the guy. The girl that goes to him. And but and as she's leaving that day, I maybe jumping forward a little bit, but Joanne says, hey, would you get my clothes from the van that he bought me in? And Anita says, sure, no, no problem, and happily goes off with this guy because she would just once crack. She's newly addicted, she's new to the whole idea of prostitution.
And so it's it's it's the unfortunate part is the fortunate part is Joanne had the street sense to get away from somebody who was very dangerous, but Anita, Nita did not.
Now we talk about where you talk about that eventually, and then we're talking about again in early nineteen ninety seven, and do you just say as well. Interesting footnote is that five months earlier, December twenty sixth, nineteen ninety six, Boulder, Colorado really gets put on the map forever and ever with their thrust into the national spotlight with the murder
of John Benet Ramsey, six year old. So five months later, officers Vicki Brennanshan and Curtis Johnson Respont respond to a report that maybe there's a suspect and a guy carrying binoculars, so I'll get you to take it from there. They stop a guy gives them an alias. What happens with these two officers and Robert Riggins.
Well, the officers spot some a guy who fits the description of the suspect they now have. They're looking for the guys that had the van, and they by the guy walking through Bowler. Basically, Robert had abandoned his band at this point, broke into a place and stole some binoculars, so he's kind of walking around the town of Boulver, acting like he's just a tourists or or whatever else out there. So you know, he's it's it's a good
point again, good police work. They spot somebody, they ask him some questions, he doesn't give satisfactory answers, and eventually break it down to that he's the guy they're looking for, and you know, and he immediately starts his news stories that, oh, you know that this girl I was with, you know, really liked her and stuff that she jumped from my van and hit her head and all that sort of stuff.
So but it's it's it's again good good police basic police work to have spotted this guy, but to ask the right questions that lets him fall into his own trap, which will be important later in the court courtroom that because he begins, like all liars, you know, it's hard keeping lives straight. You can keep the truth state straight, but it's hard keeping alive straight.
Sure, it's interesting dynamic you haven't in this their very movie esque scenes in this book. It's incredible where you have officer Vicky and and also the other Johnson uh where basically you know, pardon me, officer or detective Louc and Riggins, and he only wants his Vicky Brenn and chen rnish and pardon me with the pronunciation, but anyway, wants Vicky because yeah, and he thinks what he does as well is that he really, as you say in
the book, he really wants to convince this Vicky. So he basically ignores everybody else and begins talking too much and again inconsistently. And so just tell us a little bit about more about how he did himself in by the inconsistencies and trying to explain thinking he's so smart to think ahead of what questions they may ask him in anticipation.
This is what he does.
Well, he's for one thing, he's he's a pretty classic sociopath by this point, which is that you know, he's he's constantly thinking, he's constantly lying and thinking that he can talk his way out of problems. And because he feels he gets farther with women than he does with men, men intimidating, and so he doesn't want to deal with him.
But he thinks he can kind of convince the police woman that you know, he's innocent and that it was all a misunderstanding and this girl, uh, you know, uh, it wasn't his fault that she's hurt or or anything else like that. So he's trying to he's trying to
work that through this whole scenario. And of course, the problem is is that that when you're a guy like Robert Riggan, is that the more you talk, the more and and police officers take notes and and and and all these sorts of things, and and uh and then then all of a sudden, you're gonna get stuck and caught in your lives. And he starts and he changes
his story. He talks about where she jumped out of the car and there's a lot of blood there and and you know, all the all these sorts of things that you know, he thinks is telling them a good story. But of course what these guys don't do very well is is think, well, the police are going to go up there and they're going to look at this spot in the road and find the blood, or they're going to check this out, and so trying to make a very long, complicated story in all the pieces fit, it
doesn't work. So then you've got to start changing your story. As soon as you start changing your story, you of course have walked into yet another trap.
Now this too, you introduce a character, chief inspector investigator Dennis Goodwin, and his job is to learn everything he can about Robert Riggins Junior's past. And the first thing he does is he talks to Riggins's first wife, Judy. And you also add again a little bit of experience this guy has is that as a young criminology student in Florida State University in January nineteen seventy eight, he was working as an intern for the Tallahassee Police Department
Kyomega Sorority house break in with Ted Bundy. So he was actually enlisted to bring some evidence to court and encountered Ted Bundy. Weirdly enough, as he came into the building and so and everybody call him, and he thought it was weird everybody calling him Ted. So he could see, even in his brief encounter, the again the sociopathic, classic sociopath that has everybody to a certain degree charmed.
And as we know, that was the.
Case with Ted Bundy. So tell us what happens with Dennis Goodwin and what does he what kind of information does he get from the first wife Judy.
Well, basically he does the Iowa part of the case and going back and find the ex wives and stuff, and and again it's more of the pattern Robert has. He can be very charming and very nice and you know when he met her, kind of swept her off her feet she was young and and that sort of thing. But then he has these Well, for first of all, he's an inveterate criminal. I mean, it's it's not just
you know, he's not just a serial killer. He's you know, he's also a shoplifter and burglar and and uh sells things off and dealt some arms and these sorts of things. So she realizes pretty quick that he's you know, he's a criminal to start with, but you know his uh he is into once again, he's the the sex he wants. Isn't your loving sort of guy that she met and expected would be her husband. He's instead very violent and sex to him is all about rape and control and
these sorts of things. So again, uh, Dennis the Godwin, the investigator Goodwin is is uh you know this, These these pieces keep falling together to make them believe that Robert Riggan, as they now know is, has the possible makings of a of a sexual predator sexual serial killer, even in that he follows the everything he does is sort of a pattern of of of uh he flips when when he doesn't get what he wants and then he wants violent sex and uh use of weapons or
a knife to to get it just seems to exciting me even more. So they find this, start finding this, these sorts of things up from this wife and again later on another wife that that that establishes the pattern of who this guy is. So now once again they're starting to think that, you know, does he have other victims? Is there somebody else we would find if we keep going here.
Now at the same time, we have to get back to Juanne Cordova.
When we were back. If people were keeping.
Track, is that she was in front of that television set. She recognized what she realized that her friend was likely Jane Doe and that this guy might even be coming for her. She didn't know, so she who did she do?
What?
What did she do?
How did she go.
About contacting the police? She was a former cop, but it's not like she was in that life anymore. So who did she contact and how did that go?
Well? I mean, it is a very intertwined story. It's as you're noting, it's it's these these lives that all became whether it's the detectives or Robert Riggan or Joann Kordova's or Anita Paley's, they all become intertwined, sort of like a rug a tapestry or whatever. And it's almost hard to not have what's going on with this person, well that what's going on with that person, because they are so involved. But anyway, Joanne sees this and she
thinks about it for a little bit. She actually is she's visiting with a friend, and this friend I think it convinces her that she needs to come forward, you know, she needs to. They don't even know who Anita is, uh, you know, she's just Jane Doe. And the things that Joanne knew about who Anita had left supposed was supposed to go see. And this guy's violent tendency. He convinces Joanne that, you know, to go forward. And there's there's a couple of things going on here for Joanne at
that time. Her family doesn't really know that she's she's doing. She's working as a prostitute. She's ashamed. She you know, some of these guys who are on the police department so were guys who went with her through the police academy. So she's ashamed, she's humiliated. But there's something else going on too, which is she's working in the underworld of Denver, where you know, they don't care. It's a snitch is
a snitch. And yeah, you may want to only go forward and tell about this guy who killed your friend, but what's what's to say that you're not going to also say something about the guy who sold her the crack cocaine or set or any of these other things that are going on the streets. So it's actually a very dangerous proposition for Joanne to go forward, but she eventually places a call and says she you know she can, she will meet with the police and tell them what she knows.
You know.
So it with Joanne, it's sort of a you know that we all have good and bad in us. That in this case, the person who became a good police officer, she wasn't a police officer. She was a very good police officer. And this person who was a loving mother at one point overcame the Joanne that was they did the crack the person who had committed some crimes, the person who was working on the prophetitutes.
So what you didn't what we didn't include in that is is not only did she have to consider this very real possibility to be considered a snitch and then her life would be in danger to make this other decision to go to the police and not knowing what the reaction to her coming forward would necessarily be, but she went in fact to show actually how dangerous it was in Denver, was that she had to go to a guy that she thought, listen, this guy's gonna know one way or another, I'm going to go to him
and tell him what I'm going to do, and why, that's how serious this courageous woman, the kind of courageous woman had to really have to be able to do this.
Well, she went to Yeah, the guy you're talking about basically ran that street, ran most of that appter. He is the biggest dealer on that thing. He had that the gangs that actually worked for him, and only two weeks earlier had been he was very volatile, very large man. And you know, she had upsett him for a different reasons earlier, and he almost choked the life out of her. So this is a guy she has to go to at his place where everybody in the place has guns,
there's drugs, there's everything else. And she has to go to this guy and say, I need to do this, I need to testify for my friend. And you know, and she was taking a chance of that. He wouldn't have just thrown her in the back of a trunk of a car and taken her someplace and killed her, because you know, to to his way of thinking, is what's going to prevent her if she's going to go to the cops about this, what's to prevent her from working on an even sweeter deal. At some points and
pointing the finger at him. A snitch is the snitch on the streets. Once, once you've broken that sort of code of the streets, you are you know, you're dangerous. You're dangerous to them. So she has to go to this guy who had almost killed her two weeks earlier and take a chance that he wasn't just going to strangle her right then and there or shoot her or anything else. And that, you know, So it did take an enormous amount of courage to go to.
Yeah, it was amazing. In the book, how you what you portray is that she says, she kind of looks at his face, and then it seems to get to him that she's talking about a daughter, you know, and so that seemed to make him change. He said something to the effect like, do what you've got to do, so giving her as permission basically, do what you gotta.
Do, but only what I liked his comments, but do what you gotta do, but only what you gotta do, because you know, I mean, it came with a warning. It came with a you know, we're gonna I'm gonna overlook you doing this. But if I hear about it going any farther than this, then it could be very dangerous for you. So you know it was, Ah, it was. It's just it took a lot of courage to do it.
A lot of people can look down on Joanne and stuff for her lifestyle and what became of her life, but at the same time, it's you know, it took an enormous amount of courage to do what she did.
Now we have this Riggan is in jail, and of course he has again, like a lot of sociopaths, not so surprising. These guys think they can defend themselves and decide to defend themselves, so as such they can. He was had the right to call the prosecutor, Denis Hall, to work out a deal. None of that was ever worked out. When he would he stuck to his story about Anita jumping out of the van and did all
kinds of other wasted this Denis Hall's time. Basically, the thing that he stuck to this story was and I want you to tell us what, because it is a very very important aspect of this trial and this case. What was his explanation, because we just touched on it, that cut to the vagina, the the when they did the autopsy, they said this was like a surgical cut, a three inch cut, I would believe, so very deep, very precise. What was Ronald or what was Riggans's explanation for that vaginal wound?
Well, originally he had no explanation for it. Uh And and this is one of the things that of course catches him because he you know, he doesn't have a
good legitimate reason for why this, uh this happened. It's sort of later on and here you have to he did have a lawyer in the trial eventually that you know, they come up with this idea that prostitutes hide their uh, their crack sometimes in a you know, they were trying to say a vial or something, and that when she landed and when she jumped from the truck or as a van and hit the street, that this vile or even her crack pipe, you know, broke inside of her
and cut her that way. You know, it's it's sort of one of those we've got to explain this at trial. How are we going to do it? Oh, let's see what what might be an explanation for that, you know. And then of course they talked to enough prostucts to say, well, you know, you know, well people hide their their their stuff in their vagina and their drugs to avoid, you know, police, if the police shake them down the streets or whatever
something that they're they're trying to hide something. But it's one of those reaching to find a plausible uh excuse, you have to you have to define, you have to do some about it that trial. So it's to me, it's the defense attorney coming up with an idea of how this could have happened.
Right, and for our audience too, we got to let them know that this is a death penalty case, so there's that good possibility looming. And also, yeah, so it's
a death penalty case now. And what I wanted to say too as well is that they did have a couple other women that could have testified, but in the end, tell us what happens with those women and it ends up that it's just Juanne Cordova, and tell us a little bit about what the police reaction is to her and what is her feeling about that and as a result, what does she do to get prepared for this to make sure that she does something that she always dreamed of when she was a detective, and that was to
prosecute one of these kinds of guys. So what does she do in that endeavor? What does she do to to prepare herself for that?
Well, Joanne earned the respect of the guys like Jim Burkehalter and John Locke and Dennis Godwin in that. You know, they they they they kind of came around, you know, they were shocked, of course, and and then kind of came around to uh that, Wow, it's it's taking some courage to do this.
Fact.
They're very they were very afraid. They they offered her protection several times, but you know, she kind of turned it down, saying, you know, if you do that, then it's going to make me even stand out even more. So they you know, they they she earned her respect just that she was coming forward. These other women you're talking about, there were other prostitutes, and they would have
been very valuable at the trial. They they they had their own experiences, uh with with Riggans violence and and how he treated women and prostitutes and things he would say and do and and uh would have been very valuable witnesses. But they took off. They couldn't be found. They were subpoena for the trial, but they left town or or went underground or did whatever. And to me, there's there's your difference between somebody like uh Joanne, who's living the same life they are and bases the same
dangers and humiliation and embarrassment that these women did. And yet you know that that kernel of goodness, of morality and and doing the right thing was stronger in her. While these other people took off and did the safe thing for themselves. Joanne went forward. And like you said, she she was a young cop. Like all young cops, you know, they don't want to just work shoplifting cases and traffic and all that sort of stuff. All their lives.
They they all dream about catching the Ted Bundy or the the killer and through their detective work and their testimony at trial, they put them away. I mean, you know, everybody wants to live the television show and to to a young officer like joe Anne when she was the police officer, that's what she dreamed about, is that some days she would be a detective and she would, through her work as a as a detective and her testimony at trial, put a dangerous killer behind bars. And so
this was her chance to do that. Not under the circumstances that she had ever dreamed or fantas it's about, but you know that uh, it was, it was I don't know if it's a dream come true because of the circumstances, but it's it was certainly uh coming full
circle for for Joe Anne. It's you know, it's a true moment in somebody's life where you know hopefully that that it's it's it's you know when things are being weighed on that that scale there, that this is one of those things that weighs for you.
And as essentially the star witness, she looks sober. I mean because you hear so many cases where the witness is discredited completely and entirely because they're a prostitute, because they're a crack addict, no credibility, you know, and and they're not good witnesses whatsoever. She was sober, looking, healthy, consistent, truthful.
She didn't deny her addiction or the prostitution. She owned up to that, and she was good on cross examination, and she seemed to be according to what you say, solid, unwavering. And it ends up it's just the battle of the expert witnesses. This doctor Chris Lee Sperry and doctor Galloway and so tell us a little bit about Joanne Cordova's experience.
I mean, what I wanted you to talk about was that she was really trying to again, still fighting with his addiction, but it seemed at some point that she had a grasp of it, that she had turned a corner, that she this was part of that, as you described, this redemption, this sort of coming back from where she was to where she could have been.
Because she cleaned up, as you said, especially for the trial. She you know, uh, fortunately there was enough time that she was able to uh try to get a handle on her addiction. And and when she when she testified, you know, the defense attorney did everything he could to humiliate her and try to get her to crack and to go emotional on on the whole thing. But what all she did was just she didn't try to. You know, the one thing you can always tell about a bad witness,
they try to elaborate. Uh, you know, they make up more than they did. Oh he said, I'm going to kill the next one. Or are they They do do something like this, A truly good witness says no more than what they actually know. They don't try to add to it. They don't try to make you know, Perry Mason moment there. They they only say what they do, what they know, And Joanne did that. She didn't try to say that, uh you know, Robert Reagan told me he killed Anita. He didn't. She didn't try to say
anything like that. All she did was say what she her experiences with him and what she knew, and that that's the stuff that Jerry's believe. You know, they don't believe that other stuff they you know, everybody's seen enough television to not believe all that that stuff. So with with Joanne, it's it was a she just told the truth and and no matter what the defense attorney tried to do to humiliate her, and she didn't break She she said she owned it. And she said that's me.
I you know, yes, I've worked as a prostitute, I've done these things. I was a police officer. I'm uh these the and and that sort of thing just is devastating to a defense attorney because he wants her to crack. But basic cliche. She just owned it and did a great job. So and it did become the defense or the defense experts versus the prosecution experts in the end, But you know, I talking to jurors afterwards, it was it was Joanne's testimony that really salted this one away.
That the experts are one thing. The prosecution experts were much more convincing, you know, And you have to say, well, is that because they're telling the truth and the other guys are trying to come up with explanations. But you know that that's that's what you get. But it's that that you know, there's there's there's a thing in trials called demeanor testimony, and people don't talk about this much,
but it's not just what you say. It's your demeanor on the stand, and and juries are are allowed to take that into two account. They're allowed to sit there and say, I think he was lying, I think she was telling the truth. I think the way she did this or did that made her believable to me. It's it's demeanor. It's not exactly, it's not words, it's not
a document, but it's legitimate. And having somebody having Joanne testify as she would have if she was a police officer really assaulted this one away for the prosecution.
Now we could talk about just briefly what happens is a death penalty case, and there's always the mitigating factors and the aggregator aggravating factors, and in the end he gets life without the possibility of parole. Luckily he has a couple of people fighting for his life. Really otherwise
he would have got the death penalty. But more importantly, what's interesting in the book you you talk about who was attended the court was not the victim, not Anita's family, not Riggins family certainly, but Joanne Fordova in the end, again, just a little bright spot in a in a true crime story that has no happy ending. You talk about what Joanne Pudova was doing today seventeen years later and a futures program, So tell us about a little bit of a right spot in this story.
Well, I think you're exactly right. You know, it's we and Dan, You and I have taught for years on some of the stories, and you know the type of stories I look for, And I'm not looking for that that big story that you know has some sort of wizard of ours ending. But I'm looking for something that has a message there. And this is just I mean, and this is a story. It's not John Bennet, it's not Ted Bundy. It's not any of these these sorts of stories in Casey Anthony or or anything juicy like that.
This is a a a small story. It's a it's a small murder of a of a prostitute with a prostitute as a star witness, and you know, a guy who was just this horrible creature created by other horrible creatures. And and there's there's people say, well, why would you do a story like that? And the reason I would do a story like that is because of it shows you, no matter how far you have fallen, there is a kernel in some people that you know. It makes it
a good story. It makes it an important story that hopefully is some thing more than the Joanne Bane or John Ramsey's story or something along those lines where you're, uh, you know, there there is no satisfying or good ending and nobody is a is a good guy and nobody is a bad guy. And it's just out there and
it's got a lot of publicity. But in this I'm hoping people will look at this and say, you know, no matter how far I've fallen, or no matter what kind of a you know, troubles I've had in my life, here here's somebody who had fallen about as far as you can possibly think about falling and came through in the end and did the right thing. And Joanne, she you know, she's had her ups and downs, even even after this Crack is no no joke. It's one of
the most addictive drugs out there. It's a it's a horrible thing, and when you are already hurting in your life, it's the only way to make yourself feel good for a little bit. But she went up and down, and then she got into this program and and graduated from the program and has been clean and sober for oh what is she now, She's going on a couple of years,
and you know, and and all of us. I talked to Jim Burke Alter before I republished this book, and and talked to Dennis Hall, who was the prosecutor, and some other people, and and we all keep pulling for her. And I talked to Joanne and then let her know that you know, we're all still pulling for her. We recognize the courage that it took to do what she did, and so you know, we're all hoping and and hoping that this is the last time, and that she has
now found her herself. She's she's funny, she's she's like, you know, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do when I grow up, so you know, and and but it's been through what she's been through and to still have that that sense of humor and that sort of you know, not going to give up, not not quitting, you know, it's it's uh, it can make it. It can make going through a tornado seem like he didn't really deal with much of it. If you have anything, if if I compare my life to hers.
Well you've done an incredible job of capturing basically this world. I mean, this is not the first book that has delved into the world of prostitution and then of course the world of murder as well as a result. But or there's a correlation anyway, these are these are where the serial killers, where these people prey on people, and these are the people the most vulnerable, the person that would jump in a vehicle for a piece of crack,
to a violent rape, anal rape and demeaning. He called this these women everything under the sun, and then to apologize for this assault. I mean, even though they are prostitutes, this still, even by their definitions, they were raped, and yet a little bit of clothing was all it took, a little bit of not having sex from the beginning to the end of the time that he paid for was his idea of romance. And bizarrely enough, these women's idea of a pretty good date compared to some of
the dates that they were experiencing. So you've captured how on earth that someone even like Joanne Pardova, never mind Anita Pailey, a woman with a couple kids, that was talked into this lifestyle at a young age. You've done an incredible job capturing these lives and how on earth it could happen. And it's a very cost andary tail and again with somewhat of a happy ending in terms of the right thing was done and good police work and people observant otherwise who knows.
So yeah, very much credible.
I want to thank you Steve for coming on once again another incredible tale. I don't want to thank you very much. For those that might not know about Wild Boo Press, can you tell us a little bit about that and how they might find out more information about some of your other work and other fine authors on Wildloo Press.
Well. Wild Bloo Press is my publishing company with my partner Michael Kordova, and we started I guess Our first book came out in twenty fourteen and we haven't looked back. We have a number of really good, great true crime authors, everybody.
For well.
And William Phelps is our latest just came out today with the book called Murderer's Row. We have, uh, you know, just an outstanding group of authors who have kind of bought into our idea of of trying to make a publishing company that is for authors and by authors, and you know, trying to establish ourselves in the world of traditional publishing. We don't want to call ourselves an indie publishing company, and we see ourselves as sort of somewhere
between indie publishing and traditional publishing. But so while blue press dot com, uh, and you can go there and you can find all of our authors. We have true crime and crime thrillers, and we are starting some history genres, and we even have some romance in there. Not that you can get me to read any of it.
But.
It's uh, maybe maybe somebody out We have some great romance writers though we have Amy Lee Simpson and Janis Bocoff, who are very popular and are doing well, and they're just excellent writers. And we're just trying to give people who maybe don't have a voice out there or would be accepted by a traditional publisher a chance to get a book out there. And we think we've found some great ones.
Oh, you absolutely have.
You had an incredible roster.
You're next to someone from the well breast right beginning bro Bert will be beyond with Betrayal in Blue and that's next month coming up.
So that's a great book.
Yeah, absolutely great book.
So I want to thank you again for coming on talking about Rough Trade. You have yourself a great evening and I we'll probably be talking to you again real soon. Thank you very much.
I'm sure we will. Dan, it's always a pleasure to talk to you.
Bye bye, Thank you. Can I